dwell.

"trust in the Lord, and do good; 

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act."

psalm 37:3-5

i think we all have cases where we would rather be somewhere else or doing something else than where we are at the moment. i've been experiencing this feeling quite often lately because i've spent a lot of time thinking about the future lately, and honestly school isn't the funnest thing around. i would much rather just be living at home with my family and be able to just invest in my family and my church and ministry and work and not worry about homework and classes and projects and exams. you know, the grass is much greener on the other side concept. my defense against that ideology is pretty weak, not going to lie. and its been hard to focus on Jesus and trust He has a plan for everything, and everyplace that He puts me. 

with the desire to be at home, i figured out a way last night that i could go home for church this morning by taking the bus. i called a friend and she said she could come get me at the bus station in puyallup, and i was so excited. i hadn't told my parents so i could surprise them, and i just was hugely relieved knowing i would be home somewhere safe soon. needless to say, i ended up sleeping through my alarm this morning and missed my bus by an hour. i was super disappointed this morning, realizing it wasn't going to happen. but i got up and went to church anyways, and the sermon happened to be on making your life count. pastor dahlstrom opened the sermon up with saying "do not check out for any reason. our calling is to live as people of blessing wherever God puts us". major slap upside the head, ya? pretty much. he talked a lot about faithfulness, and being faithful with the situations that God has given us.

i think that we all deal with that at some point -- we want a different job, a different group of friends, a different calling, a different _________. and then, when we take time and focus on what we want to be different, we never live in the moment or focus on where we are at this exact moment in time. i know that i am so guilty of this. i always look at what is ahead or what lies in my past and almost never focus on where i am at the moment. but God calls us to be faithful in our individual lives, in our current paths, in where He has placed us. He has put us where we are for a reason. and that reason is not to disengage, as i make a habit of doing quite often. when things get difficult or i get discouraged, i disengage. i run home, i hide in my room, i remove myself from the people around me, instead of working those difficulties through. and God calls us to work the difficulties through. continuity is key to remaining content with where you are. we are in this for the long run, when we feel like it and when we don't. when it's easy and when its hard. we don't live with glitter, we live with consistency and continuity and choosing to work through the hard things even when its beyond our strength to do so. i firmly trust that God puts us where we are for a reason, and to be His hands and feet to whoever we are around, or wherever we are. His plans are so much greater, but do we really believe that?

i don't really know if this makes any sense, but i was really convicted by this message this morning (especially since the reason i was there was because i slept through the alarm reminding me to go home...i think God allowed that on purpose). are we purposing to live where we are right now? to care about the people who God has placed in our lives right now? to be a blessing to those around us, and in the situations we are in day in and day out? the verse above says to "trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness". we are called to be faithful in the little things and in the situations where God has placed us. and when we do that, and we purpose to be His hands and feet in our days, then i know that God will be honored and glorified, and He will conform our will to His. david follows with this suggestion: "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart". if we delight ourselves in Him, then He will conform our will to His and will fulfill the desires of our heart, because those desires will be for Him.